


Yesterday, Today

by Arowen12



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), My Chemical Romance
Genre: Gen, Post-SING (Music Video), Return AU, Reunion Era, They're back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-24 21:21:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22004644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arowen12/pseuds/Arowen12
Summary: It starts with a whisper.Whispers travel fast in the desert, there’s nothing to stop them, just the wide-open plains with scraggly bushes and they cut through it all like a dry wind, on radio waves, on word of mouth at little burnt out trading posts from zone 1 to 6 and beyond.And suddenly, if its true, everything is different. Motorbabies stare at the horizon each morning and imagine the hull of white creaking through the sand, the Crash Queens in their little strips of insanity mutter to each other over cigarettes but they watch the same horizon just as intently. What’s left of the Killjoys, the outlaws, the rebels, all begin to stir.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	Yesterday, Today

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone, I’m here with another MCR fic, I really should be writing other stuff but I guess I’ve got My Chem on the brain since the reunion. Anyways, this isn’t canon with the comics because I haven’t read them and only know the most basic premises so if anything’s different that’s why. Also, it was amazing and weird to put the Reunion era tag there. Read on and enjoy!

It starts with a whisper.

Whispers travel fast in the desert, there’s nothing to stop them, just the wide-open plains with scraggly bushes and they cut through it all like a dry wind, on radio waves, on word of mouth at little burnt out trading posts from zone 1 to 6 and beyond.

And suddenly, if its true, everything is different. Motorbabies stare at the horizon each morning and imagine the hull of white creaking through the sand, the Crash Queens in their little strips of insanity mutter to each other over cigarettes but they watch the same horizon just as intently. What’s left of the Killjoys, the outlaws, the rebels, all begin to stir.

It has been quiet since that time. Oh, rebellion was still abundant, to be beyond the clear air and chromium buildings was enough, but it became like an actor preforming the same show every night, just the motions, none of the passion. Slowly they had been wasting away, the sun blackening the world in darkness. But the whispers were like the fall of the curtain at last.

The Doctor is the first to hear the whispers. He hears everything eventually, but usually he’s the first. The first whisper hardly counts as a whisper, it circulates through the air waves across the BL channel that the Doctor switches to on occasion in case News-A-Go-Go decides to be cryptic. It’s the usual spiel about endlessly clear skies, no traffic, and have you taken your pill today? But today there is something off about the broadcast like the source itself is shaky. It’s only been shaken once before.

The whispers grow louder, clearer, like the mists after rain being pierced by beams of sunlight, or maybe like a magnifying glass burning everything beneath it.

Show Pony rolls in from the Springs, they’ve got scarves like Christmas ornaments all over them and lipstick smudged on their cheek as they twirl slowly into a seat, they all seem to move slower these days, like they took the last of the energy with them; maybe its just the radiation. Pony rolls their head on their hand as they casually flip through a record and the radio turns away vinyl glinting all scratched up an old. There’s no new stuff these days, just covers upon covers.

“So, the Crash Queens have heard some whispers.”

Pony states picking up a record and staring at the cover for a long moment before they plop it back into the bin. The Doctor nods and stares at the blinking light of the booth for a long time, thinking about the whispers.

“If it’s true…”

Pony begins and trails off, tugging at the strands of their hair, bleached at the tips after a Motorbaby insisted they were good with dye and backed out at the last minute. The Doctor sighs, it’s a heavy sigh one he feels all the way down to his spine and to the phantom sensation of his toes.

Because if it’s true, then they have hope maybe for the first time in a long time. But if it’s not? Well it would be the sort of psychological warfare BLind would pull, crush them when they’re already down, end it all. That’s how fragile it all is.

“If it’s true then you need to find The Girl.”

The Doctor states and wheels away from Pony towards the microphone. They nod and their face, a face meant for laughter and gaudy makeup is grim as they rise to their feet. Pony slides forward and rests their hand on the Doctor’s shoulder for a minute before they’re gone and its just the radio waves.

The whispers continue to grow. Of attacks in the city, or riots on the borders of each zone, of patrols that go missing; phantoms. All the while the desert watches and waits and the line of people who stop at the mailbox each day begins to grow longer and longer still.

The Girl exits the rickety buggy and thinks of white as she stares at the shack with narrowed eyes. It’s been six years, she is older, not even a girl, not the Girl. But she doesn’t know what she is if she isn’t that, isn’t what they told her she could be.

Pony opens the door with a bang of their hips, they always get there first doesn’t matter if you have a car or a motorcycle if Pony wants to be there, they’ll be there first. The Girl smiles at Pony, who grins and invites her in like it hasn’t been five and something years since she could brave the Doctor; she still listened to the broadcast because it was life or death in the desert and it was familiar.

The Doctor smiles at her like she’s still a kid with a bottlecap belt but the Girl doesn’t mind as she wraps her arms around him, he’s got grey in his beard now, almost more than black and he looks older, they’re all older.

It’s nostalgic to be in the shack, old posters and tangible symbols of them around her like a familiar blanket. She misses her mom like a limb but she hardly knew her, she knew them better than she ever knew herself she thinks.

“So, Pony tells me you were with the Spring Chickens.”

The Doctor begins and he doesn’t cross his arms over his chest but the Girl gets the sense he wants to. She nods, she’s been running with crew after crew searching for the right fit, the violent ones, the lawless ones (and there are laws in the desert), the pacifists, the pilgrims, the vagabonds, the Crash Queens, the Motorbabies. None of it had fit right.

“They let you leave okay?”

Pony asks hands brushing over their pants, they’re not wearing the leggings she had seen them in last but instead red jeans that are splattered with dubious stains. The Girl grins and knows it’s a shadow of another grin as she replies, “They didn’t have a choice.”

The Doctor grins and rolls towards to the technology where he fiddles with it for a moment changing the music before he turns towards her and everything’s suddenly heavy, serious, as he asks, “You heard the whispers?”

“’Course the Spring Chickens have been hiding out in two, saw a drac station lit up like a cross last week.”

She replies but its not an answer, not really. She’s heard the rumours and she’s not sure if she wants to believe them or can’t, she continues, “Any sustenance to them?”

Pony glances at the Doctor, or rather they share a look, one that’s full of shit and unsaid words. The Girl hates those kinds of looks, it’s the ones adults always throw over her head when they commiserating her loss or trying to find a place to put her.

“Nothing concrete yet.”

The Doctor says finally with a shrug and crosses his arms over his chest as Pony beside him nods with pressed lips. The Girl nods not certain whether she feels sad about the news or lack thereof, or happy. Does she want the whispers to be true? That was the past, and yet she’s holding onto it as tightly as her old helmet pressed onto the mantle of her latest place, it’s too small now.

She was supposed to have killed her past. It’s what they all did when they entered the desert, but her beginning is in the desert and she’s not sure where her past ends and her present is supposed to begin. Maybe it’s just the before and after.

“I’m going to the Diner.”

She says because she can’t stand the quiet, the expectant silence, like she needs to be happy or angry like them. Pony opens their mouth maybe to protest, maybe to offer a ride but the Doctor states, “It’s still in the garage.”

A smile in thanks and she walks out of the shack and to the very back. It is there under a dusty tarp beside almost but not quite empty cans of gasoline, spray paint, and coils that she only knows what they’re for because she watched them being used.

The tarp flies off in a rush of dust, the Girl coughs and stares at the bike, it’s a motorcycle, was his motorcycle and she can see the paint on the sides faded after years that she could never bring herself to touch up, the leather is still soft beneath her fingers and she remembers tiny hands on the grip as she swings her leg over. Its like she’s suddenly blasting down Route Guano again music louder than her heart and that wonderful heat-burnt smell of ray guns and sun.

She walks the motorcycle out into the sunlight and nods once at the shack where she knows Pony will be watching and hits the gas. It takes a moment, she hasn’t touched a two-wheel for half a year, and this particular one in five. But she’s fine a moment later and the wind rips through her curls and she can’t remember why she ever stopped as she screams into the wind like him.

The Diner’s not far, but in the desert, distance blurs and shifts, an hour is suddenly a day with the right or wrong turn of weather. It was late when she left.

Evening creases the sky in shades of blue, yellow, and red and she thinks of primary and secondary colours. She pulls into a pit stop, it’s an old gas station and neutral territory, no one will bother her here if they follow the laws.

She pulls into the back and parks the bike before she knocks on the door, it creaks open and there’s a Killjoy on the other side.

“Girl.”

“Sandman.”

She greets and tramps inside as the tiny Killjoy leads her to a bunk with empty chip bags and a pillow fluffed with old rags. She sits down and sets her bag down as Sandman mimics the motion, he is older, like the rest of them, since she last saw him, but his blond hair and kind face is still there buried beneath a beard. He offers her a can of Powerpup and asks, “Heard the whispers.”

She nods and asks, “Where are the others?”

Usually there’s four of them and she hasn’t heard of new masks at the mailbox. Sandman tilts his head and says, “Out with other ‘Joys. Heard the rumours?”

“About you planning a party that’ll send the dracs Costa Rica?”

Sandman nods and smiles, most people don’t take Sandman for a ‘joy at first glance cause of that smile. The Girl grins back as she finishes the crap in the can and doesn’t ask, it’s safer that way and a surprise party is a good kind of party; she thinks of roasted crickets and faded ribbon.

They don’t speak anymore that night and the Girl creeps out before the sun has started to eat the horizon. The bike peels smoothly out onto Guano and she knows this road, could drive this probably with her eyes blindfolded but she’s not stupid.

It stands out even from a distance, a little speck on the horizon that screams home through her very being as she banks off the road and across the desert cutting her speed as the mirage solidifies. If possible, it looks more run-down then when she saw it last five years ago, the I and the R are missing from Diner and the teal blue has faded almost to something grey but not quite, the metal’s rusted, but it’s still the same building.

She parks the bike and walks forward. Up close she can see the graffiti that swallows the sides of the building, tags, their symbols, words, slogans, art, all of it a shrine to them. Other Killjoys have been here she knows that much but none of them stay, she couldn’t stay either.

It takes a hard shove to push open the door but eventually it does swing open with a grind and a squeal. She can see the booths covered in dust the wrecked counter dented from arguments and whatever project one of them was working on. There are footprints that disturb the dust but they stop before the back rooms. The Girl trails her fingers over the seats with holes and walks towards the backrooms, she can see it how they left it before that day.

There are old comics, vinyl and CDs, pieces of clothing that she never saw them wear, photos of their pasts, of the past in general. She stops when her fingers find the picture of them and her, they’re all squished into one booth, smiling unaware, laughing untouched. She thinks Pony took it; she recognizes their hand.

The Girl holds it in her hands for a long moment at war with herself over this photograph, a snap shot of the past. She tucks it carefully in her jacket and turns around, there’s nothing here, no clue, not hint, not even a whisper.

Something roars outside on Route Guano and before she’s really thinking about it The Girl has her ray gun in her hands and is darting outside, there’s nothing just the bike glinting in the sunlight, no dust, no cars. She sighs and tucks the gun away, it’s an older model but its light and the paint job is his.

The bike purrs as she blasts down Guano, away from the shack and towards a detour.

There’s a crowd today, there always is some days more than others and she’ll bitch and complain that someone should just make another one but no one takes her seriously. She kicks the bike to a stop a good distance away so she can watch it like an anthill erupting.

Eventually though she knows she’s wasting time and she walks forward. They part for her, they always do like she’s got an aura, then again they did it for them and they do it for some of the other ‘Joys. Still she hates it, hates the expectation that because of who her mother was, who they were, that she’s somehow greater than any of them. You choose freedom and your equal doesn’t matter who you came from or what you did.

There’s a pile of letters at the bottom and old masks, she imagines all of the masks buried beneath the sand, sinking slowly there year after year. She placed their masks here after, they had left them at the Diner (she wants to know why they went without their masks), and she placed the four of them there and hoped the Witch found them and brought them to safety. Now she wonders.

The Girl bends and opens the tray with one hand while she pulls out the photo with the other. There’s a tangible ripple, a whisper through the crowds for those that can see it as she places the photo in the tray and snaps it shut. Wherever they are the Witch is watching and that’s enough for her for now. Isn’t it?

She turns around something flickering at the corner of her vision as she walks through the crowds and tries to find faces that she knows but there are none. Most of them are gone, a last-ditch rally after that day, or faded to obscurity, or too close to the city in the hopes they can make a change there. Sometimes she sees their phantoms, of what they were, of what they could have been.

The metal of the bike is hot beneath her fingers, and almost blinding, she knows he wasn’t finished fixing it because of that. She swings over the seat and pauses, glances over her shoulder there’s a ‘Joy with a portable radio and she can the Doctor’s voice announcing something hurtling like super nova through the zones and strange tidings in the city.

With a grunt she swings the bike around and then the road is burning to rubber beneath her wheels as she heads towards the Doctor.

As she passes the whispers seem to grow. Of new art on walls that were always bare, or with only one familiar tag. Of riots and fights in bars that were slowly becoming empty strangled places. Of new ‘Joys and Crash Queens, of Motorbabies and races. And on it seems to go.

The sun has started to slant towards the horizon as she pulls up the bike. It’s an instant incessant sort of feeling like walking into a drac nest, but better, like nervousness for a test, those things they made her write on occasion just to make sure she could function.

Pony opens the door for her and ruffles her hair as she hands them a stack of vinyl one of the ants on the hill passed to her. Pony takes it with a grin and a twirl before the Doctor rolls out and asks, “Heard enough of the whispers yet?”

She puzzles through his words for a long moment before she gets it and he nods when she stares at him.

There’s the roar of a car growing loud and fast in the distance and she feels like she might burst, like she’s gone super nova as she turns and darts out of the shack as the sound cuts out. It’s not the Trans Am, she knows that’s gone, it’s something else though, sleek metal and a square body old and new.

The doors open and they step out, all four of them. She drinks the sight of them in like its fucking air because the details of their faces have gotten blurry over six years but she knows its them, knows it in the same way a kid knows how to breathe.

They’re older, changed, different and yet the same. They have their scars, Jet’s eyepatch, Ghoul’s slasher grin, and new ones, one under Party’s chin another on Kobra’s chest. Party’s hair is long but not red, brown, Ghoul’s is short, Kobra’s isn’t blond, Jet’s is pretty much the same though. They aren’t wearing Killjoy colours, but its not BLind shades either, its warm, greens and blues that make her think of those magazines with pictures of before.

And then she knows. Then she can’t wait.

The Girl runs forward and Party smiles and it’s the same but different as she crashes into him and there are salty tears streaming down her cheeks and she can’t remember the last time she cried because it’s always a waste of water in the desert, but here she is crying. She can feel Jet’s hand on her shoulder, Ghoul’s arm around her back, and Kobra behind her. She’s home.

They whisper that its true.

X

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading! Part of me kind of feels like there could be more to this, maybe something from the fab four’s point of view, or after. But for now, this is what it is and if I get inspired, I may write more. Reviews/comments are always appreciated, thank you!


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